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| At Home, April 19, 2022 |
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot
Snow is not what T. S. Eliot had in mind I'm sure, nor are lilacs about to be coming out of the currently soggy land just yet. But I think most people would agree with the first phrase. April is inevitably full of promise, a whiff of spring here and there, followed by a blast of winter redux, but it's the whiff of what's to come that is such torture. It's a come-on.
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| Not my willow, but the Hustons' |
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| A fine day to set up the pool filtration system. |
Take today. I had to start a fire in the wood stove again because and the day began cloudy, and then there was a sleet downpour. Now, as I complain about that, the sun is shining and the sky is blue, putting the lie to what I just wrote.
Yet the day before the snow arrived the woods were beautiful with spring showing up everywhere. That was a day I decided I needed to have a walk, bum knee or not, so I took an ibuprofen, leashed the dog and headed out.
There were flowers, all the more beautiful because they pushed "out of the dead land," through the leaves of last fall, fallen pine needles and twigs.
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| Ramps! |
Deer are appearing more frequently. Fawns are beginning to be born. Almost every night there are deer around somewhere nearby. Skyler seems to do altogether too good a job of keeping them at a distance, however. (He barks at the periphery of where he thinks the electric fence may be. This is internalized, as I seldom have him wear his collar.) Although I noticed the deer are only somewhat intimidated, not exactly terrified. Son-in-law Chris has attached a wildlife camera to a tree on their property behind my house. Along with the occasional coyote and an enormous raccoon, this is a frequent view:
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| From the wildlife camera: I increased the contrast to show the deer more clearly. |
April and May are the time for coyote births. There haven't been any recent nighttime coyote visitors that I am aware of, although who knows what wanders here at night. My motion detector light turns on frequently some nights, visible to me in my bedroom whenever I have a restless night. Logic tells me that movements prompting the light are likely to be creatures that are plentiful. That suggests rabbits. I'm not sure how minute the movement needs to be to turn the light on. I've wondered whether even voles could do it, although I have my doubts. If it's a question of abundance, well, I have had altogether too many voles, last year being the worst for hole-making. A few days ago I spent the better part of a morning (by "better part" I mean the part when the sun was out, before the wind and the rain) pouring in soil to fill up all the apartments they've created in Vole City. To date they look undisturbed. Fingers crossed.
Ever since the ice disappeared, despite a brief re-icing, there have been the usual spring visitors to the big pond. True to the season they arrived in pairs. First were a beautiful hooded merganser couple. Second was a wood duck pair.
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| This is as close as I could get to the mergansers and the wood ducks. |
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| The Hooded Merganser |
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| A Wood Duck pair |
Also dropping in have been geese, the occasional heron, a Mallard pair, more mergansers and a muskrat. I'm hoping the muskrat was only checking out the property and not interesting in settling in. The last muskrat family that lived here two years ago made a tunnel large enough that I am filling it in to this day. My job for today.
CODA
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| The real end of winter. An empty woodshed. |
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